Astros’ Will Harris conducts slab experiment

Protecting a one-run lead in the eighth inning on Tuesday, Astros reliever Will Harris retired the meatiest part of the Angels’ lineup 1-2-3.

Protecting a one-run lead in the eighth inning on Tuesday, Astros...

ANAHEIM, Calif. — The situation shifted, and the Astros required a bridge. Jose Altuve’s three-run double gave them a two-run lead in the eighth inning of Tuesday’s game against the Angels.

Ken Giles loosened, a perfect 5-for-5 when afforded a save situation in the ninth inning. Before him, Will Harris faced the reconfigured top of the Angels order in the eighth, an unenviable slate of Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani and Justin Upton.

Harris entered the game. He kicked dirt on the mound. The spot on the third-base side of the rubber, where for 24 years he has set up to pitch, was ready.

Trout received a diet of pitches out and away. Harris’ cutter had its trademark right-to-left movement, almost touching 93 mph. Trout offered at one and missed. Harris’ fifth pitch, a four-seam fastball, was 93.2. Trout swung through it for a strikeout.

Translator

To read this article in one of Houston's most-spoken languages, click on the button below.

Get insights, lively discussion and, of course, debate from Houston Chronicle columnists and guests every Thursday as they take on the most current hot-button topics in sports. Please subscribe on your favorite podcast app, and give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. It helps! Thanks!

Ohtani and Upton each grounded out — Ohtani on a four-seam fastball and Upton on a cutter. Each pitch eclipsed 93 mph. Harris ambled from the mound with a shutdown inning and a path paved for Giles’ sixth save in as many opportunities.

“The hitters are telling me by their swings that they’re having a tough time picking the ball up again,” manager A.J. Hinch said of Harris. “I think his angle is back; his finish on his pitches is back. He’s throwing the ball hard again. He’s 92-93 tonight and locating his pitches.”

It was a return in more ways than one. For the “third or fourth” straight outing, Harris moved back to the right side — the third-base side — of the pitching rubber.

In spring training, Harris wanted to deepen his repertoire. He’s renowned for his cutter, a four-seam fastball and an occasional curveball. He experimented with a two-seam fastball in West Palm Beach and wanted to make his curveball, which he used only 31.3 percent of the time last season, more consistent.

Doing so necessitated a move to the middle of the pitching rubber, altering the setup and place of delivery he said he’d utilized since he was 9.

Now in the middle, Harris found the consistency on his curveball he desired. The two-seam fastball was coming along nicely, too, though he has yet to throw it in a regular-season game.

Yet for the first month of the season, Harris stayed in the middle of the rubber.

“I was making good pitches, and everything was fine. I just wasn’t getting the outcomes I was used to getting,” said Harris, a seven-year veteran. “When you pitch for a long time, you get used to certain outcomes on certain pitches, so it was weird for me to see some of the swings that I was getting, and it was just like, ‘Man, this isn’t right.’”

Harris allowed a baserunner in eight of his first 10 outings. Against the Yankees on May 3, when handed a 5-3 lead in the ninth inning, he allowed two hits, walked a batter and did not record an out.

He’s thrown 149 cutters this season and allowed 10 hits. Last season, on 282 of them, he allowed just 17.

“If I’m throwing a cutter and I’m throwing from the middle of the rubber, it’s not going to appear to move as much as it does when I move to the third-base side and I throw that same pitch and angle it from right to left and it’s also breaking from right to left,” Harris said. “It has the appearance that it’s moving more than it actually is.”

Harris switched back to the third-base side of the rubber “about three or four outings ago.”

There has not been a hit against him in his last three outings, spanning 31/3 innings.

“Kind of went back to what I’d done forever, and the results have been good, so it’s easy to say that maybe that’s why,” Harris said.

This doesn’t mean all of the spring training work is abandoned. Harris still hopes to incorporate the two-seam fastball at some point. A slider may also be in the works.

“It’s a game of geometry and physics, and you’re just trying to have the leverage in your favor against certain hitters,” Harris said. “I kind of got away from that (while) trying to add some things, and now I’m just trying to get back to it. There will probably be some more adjustments along the way too.”